Résumés are used by employers to assess a candidate's job qualifications. As an applicant, your objective is to highlight your most noteworthy skills and accomplishments in a brief, yet descriptive manner to land an interview. Résumés are typically used for part-time, full-time, and internship positions as well as for application to graduate school. They are generally scanned (in about 30 seconds), so first impressions are crucial. This way of summarizing yourself can be thought of as a one to two page advertisement of your skills, education, and past experience. It is important to be strategic and mindful of the skills you are trying to sell to a potential employer.

Use these guidelines to help you get started

To begin writing a winning résumé, you must first complete a self-analysis of the following college level experiences:

• Education (college level only)
• Professional Experience
• Relevant or Work Experience
• Volunteer Experience
• Extra-curricular Activities / Leadership
• Honors and Awards

Your name and contact information (address, telephone number, email address) should be listed prominently at the top of the page. The aforementioned elements typically serve as section headings, but should be ordered by relevance to the job you are seeking. Résumé writing is not an exact science. Be sure to sell your skill sets in a way that works best for you and the information you are trying to communicate. Ask yourself what the employer is seeking and write your résumé so that you stand out among the competition.

Important Tips

One page or two?

Try to stick to one page when writing your résumé. If you end up not mentioning great information for the sake of saving space, it is acceptable to submit two pages. However, do not try to extend a one pager into two.

Be specific about your accomplishments and try to quantify information where possible

• Before: Planned and implemented lesson plans in classroom
• After: Planned and implemented three mathematics lesson plans for 20 students in a fourth grade classroom

Avoid typos and grammatical errors

You only have 30 seconds to make a good impression on paper, do not get tossed out of the stack for silly mistakes.

List your accomplishments rather than job duties using action verbs

Be brief

Highlight your most marketable qualities, not all of your qualities. The purpose of the résumé is to land a job interview. Be sure to leave something to talk about!

Make sure your résumé is easy to read and not too busy

• Use a maximum of 2 typed font styles
• Be consistent with bold, italics, spacing, etc.
• Make margins consistent on all sides
• Avoid using borders

Double check contact information for accuracy, update regularly

• Include your name, address (campus and permanent is acceptable), telephone number, professional email address
• Be sure your outgoing voicemail message is professional
• Your written email address should be professional also

Because your résumé will make an impression in 30 seconds or less, it is important to follow a few basic tips to make your document easy to read:

• Be concise
• Balance white space and text to achieve a polished look
• Make margins consistent on all sides (no less than 1/2” on top and bottom)
• Center the résumé on the page
• Headings may be centered or left aligned
• Be consistent with punctuation
• Use bullets to highlight information within a section
• Use bold, italics and capitalization minimally and consistently
• Use a font style that is crisp and easy to read – avoid scripts
• Keep font size between 10 and 12 point for content, larger for headings
• Print résumé on high quality bond paper, neutral colors are best

Action Verbs and Adverbs

Sample Resume

Sample 2 Column Resume